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Derek Jeter helping Arena Club make its mark in sports collectibles hobby
Like many sports card collectors, longtime hobbyist Brian Lee kept running into the same problems while trying to build his impressive collection of cards and collectibles.
Inconsistent card grading. Risky and inefficient marketplaces that led to high costs, bad deals, poor shipping, and a host of unhappy customers.
But unlike most collectors, Lee had the knowledge, resources and background to do something about it. An entrepreneur with an impressive background as the Co-Founder and CEO of The Honest Co., Co-Founder and President of LegalZoom.com, and the Managing Director of investment firm BAM Ventures, Lee wanted to dive deeper into sports collectibles and create his own company to tackle some of the issues the rapidly growing hobby was facing.
But in order to do that, Lee needed a partner and a face for his new company.
And he knew exactly who he wanted.
When Lee launched Arena Club in September of 2022, he did so with a familiar face as his founding partner—Baseball Hall of Famer and former New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter.
“Derek and Brian have been friends for years and when Brian started the company and we were looking for athlete partners, Derek really was at the top of our list,” said Arena Club COO/CFO Jesse Glass. “It’s hard to find someone who has had such an incredible career with a pristine reputation and is such an incredible team player.”
Jeter, a 14-time All-Star with the Yankees and one of the most recognizable athletes in the world, had collected baseball cards growing up but lost his collection in a flood. He had been interested for years in getting into the sports collectibles industry, and Arena Club seemed like a perfect match.
“He’s had a lot of fun getting back into it,” Glass said.
So much fun that Jeter has his own Arena Club Showroom where you can view his card collection, or even buy cards directly from him. His Showroom recently featured a 1996 autographed Leaf rookie card of former Yankee teammate Andy Pettitte, as well as collections of cards of former Yankee greats Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield.
“It is one of the most popular showrooms,” said Arena Club CTO Vartul Agrawal.
“You can buy them from him and you can track that it came from Derek Jeter, too,” Glass added. “Those cards often command a premium. People love it. There are autographs in his showroom and they sell out. If you go there now you aren’t going to see much because we can’t keep cards there.”
The Showroom, where collectors can showcase or sell their own cards, is one of the most popular features on Arena Club, which started as a high-tech grading company but has quickly evolved into a marketplace where collectors can buy and sell cards as well as get them graded.
What started as a way to solve some of the problems Lee encountered as a collector has evolved into a one-stop-shop for collectors.
“We decided we really wanted to focus more on the community, and I think what that really means is being a hub for people to come in and just do everything they do as a collector, something else that the hobby was lacking,” Glass said.
Another new product Arena Club launched last year is Slab Packs, or pre-graded digital cards that collectors can open online and see the digital version of the physical cards they purchase and will receive in the mail.
“The idea is to take that product to digital with transparency so you can see what is the hit rate, what’s the chance of getting these cards, and these are the exact cards you get,” Agrawal said. “These are all digital cards that go directly to your Showroom, but they are backed by the physical card so you can actually retrieve them. The whole idea is you just pay for shipping and you get your cards shipped to you.”
Slab Packs have been a hit since they launched early this year. Glass says the packs have “brought a ton of excitement to our platform, giving collectors the experience they love the most, which is really just ripping packs and chasing after really big cards.”
“That’s really been a huge boon for our company in terms of new Showrooms and getting people introduced to our grading and marketplace,” Glass said.
When Arena Club launched in 2022, its big push and selling point was using AI and other technology to take human error out of card grading. Glass admits, however, that it has been a tough market to crack with rival PSA dominating the market and companies like CCG and SGC, which is now owned by PSA, making a push.
“It’s hard. PSA is dominant, which isn’t news to anyone,” Glass said. “It is definitely going to be a longer road, but I think a lot of people have really come around to love our grading and our slabs and sub-grades and creating reports. It is just a very different experience than what people are used to with the incumbents.”
Agrawal believes using AI technology to produce more accurate and consistent grades is the wave of the future.
“That is the big part that sets us apart. You can clearly see why you got your grade,” he said. “We are using AI to make it consistent across different cards and it doesn’t depend on the grader. If you make it physical, humans are different. You can train a machine to do the same thing in the same time in similar ways. … We are using AI to grade faster but also accurately.”
Agrawal says Arena Club’s marketplace and other products have helped persuade collectors to try their high-tech grading system.
“I think even Slab Packs has drawn people to our grading because they see, ‘OK, the slab actually holds value.’ So, ‘Let me come with my cards, they are more efficient, they are cheaper than the incumbents and the turnaround time is really good.’”
Arena Club also recently launched its own daily auctions to go with its fixed-price marketplace. Glass said cards in Arena Club slabs have sold for almost the same prices as cards graded by PSA.
The company’s mission is to combine all those services to give collectors a more efficient and pleasant buying, selling and grading experience.
“When we launched, people were like, ‘Oh, it’s a new grading company,’ and we have come a long way from that,” Glass said. “Grading is very important to what we do, but it’s just one of the things that we do. … We didn’t really start the company by saying there needs to be another grading company. We really started it because buying raw cards online is just not a good experience.”
Like other hobby companies that have expanded into full-service collectibles entities, Arena Club is trying to change that with its broad offering of products and services.
“As we look toward the future, we definitely want to keep innovating,” Glass said. “I think that’s like our key differentiator that really sets us apart in the industry. We want to keep innovating and building really exciting products that collectors want.
“We don’t think it’s enough to offer just one feature. We want to be a one-stop-shop platform for collectors to build community and collect. We want to create an efficient, easy-to-use platform. That’s really the end goal, and we’re going to keep adding features too.”
And it will continue to benefit from the input and athlete perspective from their popular founding partner.
“Derek has worked with Brian on navigating really important relationships, everything from fund-raising to weighing in on the product,” Glass said. “He’s been an incredible partner and done everything we have asked him to do.”
The growing company hopes Jeter’s involvement will continue to entice collectors and bring new hobbyists to Arena Club and into the industry.
Arena Club was a sponsor of this year’s National Sports Collectors Convention in Cleveland and will have a big presence this weekend at the first Fanatics Fest NYC, where Jeter will be a guest of Topps and Major League Baseball. He may also visit with customers and collectors at the Arena Club booth.
The popular MLB star is the company’s most powerful marketing assets.
“It’s fantastic. People love Derek and some of our big customers have had a chance to meet him,” Glass said. “He has signed a lot of SP autos we have put in our Slab Packs. People absolutely love getting those. A Derek Jeter-signed SP auto in an Arena Club slab is just a beautiful and special product that our collectors love.”
Jeff Owens is the editor of SCD.
